Merchant's House

The Merchant's House dominates the docks and wharves of Volantis, a four-story monstrosity of a building that squats amongst warehouses, brothels, and taverns like some enormous fat man surrounded by children. Its common room is larger than the great halls of half the castles in Westeros, a dim-lit maze of a place with a hundred private alcoves and hidden nooks whose blackened beams and cracked ceilings echo to the din of sailors, traders, captains, money changers, shippers, and slavers, lying, cursing, and cheating each other in half a hundred different tongues. Here traders from Oldtown and King's Landing mingle with their counterparts from Braavos and Pentos and Myr, with hairy Ibbenese, pale-skinned voyagers from Qarth, coal-black Summer Islanders in feathered cloaks, even masked shadow-binders from Asshai by the Shadow. The inn is famous for its locks, as secure as a gaol, and its rooms range from grand to cramped, with the cheap ones up on the fourth floor featuring low ceilings, sagging feather beds, and slanting wood-plank floors.

Tyrion's Captivity and the Widow's Intervention

It is to the Merchant's House that Jorah Mormont brings Tyrion Lannister after capturing him in Selhorys. Mormont secures a cheap room on the fourth floor, wedged into a corner beneath a sloping roof, and chains Tyrion to an iron ring set in the wall. The room has two windows, one looking toward the Long Bridge and the black-walled heart of Old Volantis across the river, the other opening onto Fishermonger's Square below. Tyrion, chained and helpless, contemplates escape but finds none possible. The next morning, Mormont unchains him and they descend to the common room, where they break their fast. It is here that Tyrion first sees Penny, the dwarf girl who will later become his companion, though at this moment she is a stranger. Mormont then leads Tyrion to the widow of the waterfront, who holds court at her customary table in a shadowy corner by the courtyard. The widow, a former bedslave freed and married by the triarch Vogarro, now runs his ventures from the Merchant's House. She is a shrewd and powerful figure, and after a tense negotiation, she agrees to help them, arranging passage on the cog Selaesori Qhoran to Qarth, though she knows the ship will never reach its destination. It is also in the Merchant's House that the dwarf girl Penny, mistaking Tyrion for the man responsible for her brother's death, attacks him with a knife, only to be subdued by Mormont. The widow, observing the chaos, decides to help them after all, noting that Volantis is no safe place for dwarfs.

A Hub of Commerce and Intrigue

The Merchant's House is not merely an inn but a central node of commerce and information in Volantis. Quentyn Martell and his companions stay there while desperately seeking passage to Meereen, finding the inn well recommended by the master of their previous ship. The inn's trestle table outside, decorated with striped blue-and-white pennons, is where the sellsword company the Windblown sets up to recruit fresh meat for their campaign in Slaver's Bay, calling out to every passing man and boy. The inn's common room is a place where deals are struck, rumors are traded, and the fate of kingdoms is discussed over cups of wine. It is here that Tyrion, through his cyvasse games with Brown Ben Plumm, begins to weave his way into the sellsword's favor, a move that will later prove crucial to his escape from slavery. The Merchant's House, with its labyrinthine interior and constant flow of humanity, serves as a microcosm of the volatile and interconnected world of Essos, a place where a dwarf can be a slave one moment and a player in the game of thrones the next.